Chinese Medicines

It is always interesting to look at the assorted chinese medicine sold by the Chinese Medical Hall in Chinatown. I have never taken these lizard looking animals that are being dried and I think they are the flying lizards. I have no idea how they are being consumed or cooked.

And dried seahorses, no idea what are they used to cure what types of ailments.

I only knew these dried scallops and lingzhi....lol. These lingzhi are one of the most expensive mushrooms sold. They are real huge. For more information on Lingzhi, you can read them here.

And I have no idea what types of skins these are. I think they belong to some kind of reptiles.

You can look at my other post on how a chinese medical hall looked like. Click here for the photo.

Temporary Stadium

Today my photo for skywatch had many buildings with the sky as the background.

You can see many office buildings, hotels, the flyer (you called it The Eye) and the colourful blue, yellow, red and green seats in the background. The red seats are where the VIPs sat. This is our temporary stadium.

This temporary platform was where we held our recent national day celebrations. Our old national stadium was torn down to make way for the new Singapore Sports Hub. For more information of the old stadium, you can view here. We have many stadiums around Singapore but the national stadium is the largest in Singapore.

Thanks to Tom for hosting Sky Watch. For other sky watchers, you can go to Tom's skywatch blog.

Buddha Tooth Relic Temple

The Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum (Singapore) (BTRTS) was founded in 2002 by Venerable Shi Fa Zhao. The Temple will be dedicated to the Maitreya Buddha, which means 'The Compassionate One', and also called 'The Future Buddha'.

The temple was built in the heart of Chinatown and houses some museums. More than 60,000 donors have given the temple $45 million and 270kg of gold. The gold was later melted and rebuilt into a 3.6m-high stupa to house the tooth relic.

Day view of the temple.

Night View of the temple.

You can visit the temple website to know more of it. http://www.btrts.org.sg/Eng_Index.html

Massage Chairs Promotion

This is a promotion of massage chairs by OSIM in a shopping mall. I was attracted by the unique designs put up by them.

Light Reflection

I like the way the lights of the chandelier reflected in the fish pond.

Sky Watch-UFO

This is the day, I spotted a UFO above me.....lol. Does it look like a flying saucer?

It is actually part of the architectural design of the expo MRT station.

I am not standing at the correct angle in taking the whole station. You could find other photos to see the whole station from here.

Thanks to Tom for hosting Sky Watch. For other sky watchers, you can go to Tom's skywatch blog.

Food Fair (Final)-Food Stalls

More yummy stalls. That day, I should have taken my lunch here...lol. The food looked so delicious and price reasonable.

Stall selling local food, like fishball, fried meehoon, etc.
I spotted some noodles and curry chicken....yummy.

A stall selling biscuits and pastry.

Food Fair (Part 3)-Food Stall

This stall sell the kebabs.

A hainanese chicken rice stall

Stall selling the famous japanese fried squid balls.

Food Fair at Expo (Part 2)

More food stalls at the fair.

The sales man is trying to sell his honey. So he demonstrated how they extract the honey from it.

Another stall selling snacks.



Japanes dried abalone

Have you ever tried Putu Mayam?

It used to be one of my favourite snack during my childhood.

You can see another picture of it in my food blog. For more information you can see the source from here.

Food Fair-Part 1 - Bak Kwa Or BBQ meat

I had visited the food fair after visiting the travel fair earlier this month.

The fair is just as crowded.

This is the bak kwa or BBQ meat store where they sold bak kwa and sausages.

Bakkwa, or rougan is a Chinese salty-sweet dried meat product similar to jerky, made in the form of flat thin sheets. It is normally made from pork. For more information, you can view here.

National Day - Fighter Planes

Hopefully this would be my last on fighter planes...hehehe...dont want to bore my fellow bloggers. :)

I took this on National Day (09.08.2008), now I know why the last plane is trying to catch up with the rest of the planes. The last plane had just finished performing an acrobatic show at Marina and now fly to join the rest in the final show at Marina.

Compared the two photos and see the difference. The last plane was coming in different directions on different days.

The below photo was taken on 02.08.2008 during the National Day preview.

You need to watch this exciting video especially the ending part taken on 09.08.2008. It looked scary when the plane just turned and dived to join them. It looked a bit different from the preview video that I took earlier.

Thanks to Tom for hosting Sky Watch. For other sky watchers, you can go to Tom's skywatch blog.

Cinema

Have you ever watch 2 movies in one day? I did...lol. I watch Mummy:Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor. The movie was great and I enjoyed it. But my eldest son think it was boring and he fall asleep but he enjoyed the other movie Journey to the center of the earth. The other movie is great too but I prefer The Mummy.

The cinema at Golden Village Marina was comfortable, the chairs are so cozy. (Photo taken with cellphone.)

The morning show was quite empty at 10.20 am but the afternoon show was almost full. I guess most do not want to wake up too early to watch a movie. Well, my sisters and me prefer the morning show so that we can have lunch and shop in the afternoon. :)
(Photo taken with cellphone)

I took this trailer in the cinema. I was testing if my cell phone could take pictures without flash.

National Day 2008

Yesterday was our National Day, Singapore 43rd Birthday. I took some photos off the TV to show my friends our culture and how we celebrate National Day. I could not get the tickets to the live parade nor do I want to stand by the roadside to watch cause it would be very crowded. So I have to be contended with the television.

The above photo shows the chinook carrying the National flag as the nation sings the National Anthem.

From my window, I could view the chinook carrying the flag far off from where I stay. This is the best I could zoom on the chinnok.

Pictures taken off television.

We are a multi racial country, we have the Indian Dance.

This year the Chinese Dance comprise of some teochew operas.

This is the Malay Dance.

There are more perforamnce and fireworks after all these dances but I did not snap them.

National Day 2008-National Flags

Today is the National Day of Singapore. Singapore will be 43 this year. Most Singaporean are proud to display the National Flag on their homes, offices, factory, etc.

On this day, many would wear Red and White or Red or White clothings to celebrate the day.

For the history of Singapore, you can view from here.

Skywatch - A day full of planes

Last Saturday was a day full of planes because of the National Day Preview. Tomorrow is the actual performance for National Day which is Singapore 43rd Birthday since independence. I hope to take more video of the planes tomorrow when they flew over me.

The three helicopters flew towards the sunset. Look on the right hand side, you could see three little bird like objects in the sky, they are the helicopters.

Another video of the fighter planes.

You can watch another video of mine about the fighter planes in an earlier post.

Thanks to Tom for hosting Sky Watch. For other sky watchers, you can go to Tom's skywatch blog.

NATAS Travel Fair 2008 - Part 2 (Final) and Olympics Mascots

Today my post will be on the Olympics Mascot for tomorrow Olympics in Beijing, China.

A friend who just returned from a holiday in Beijing, China, gave me this momentos with the olympic mascots. I am so crazy over these cute mascots. You can view the huge mascots in Bank of China Singapore in my earlier post.

Engravings behind the momentos that showed the olympics logo.

More olympics mascots at the NATAS FAIR.

Saw these cute mascots at the travel.

These mascots were arranged by ASA Travel Holidays to mingle with the crowds as they organised many China Tours.

My husband was laughing so hard at me for running after these mascots just to take a photo of them..lol

NATAS TRAVEL FAIR 2008 Part 1

Last Saturday, I was at Singapore Expo for the NATAS Travel Fair. I was collecting some travel guides and brochures. We need to pay an admission fee of $3 for adults. The fair was over a three day period and saw a record of 65,000 people visiting the fair. The travel companies make a few millions during this 3 days. Singaporean love to travel.

Look at the crowd queuing to enter. But the queue was fast moving. I was lucky when I was there at 1.30 pm on Saturday, the queue was much shorter but later in the afternoon, the queue was so much longer.

Inside the exhibition hall it was so huge that it was not very cramp or stuffy. The air conditioning was cooling enough to handle the huge crowd.

Lots of good bargains and discounts at the exhibition for travels to many countries. And all these come with freebies.

For more photos on the fair, you could view them at my travel blog.

National Day 2008 Preview - Fighter Planes

I was taking video of these fighter planes during last saturday national day preview. The real parade will be on National Day 9th August 2008. National Day is our Singapore's Birthday, she will be 43 this year after gaining independence in 1965.


Watch the video especially towards the ending part. I find out about the ending part action only when I load the video into the computer.


These five fighter planes was supposed to form a pattern together upon reaching the destination in Marina Bay but I found out towards the end of the video that one of the plane was right behind the first four planes.

What do I know about planes....I thought the last plane was slow and trying to catch up with the first four plane but my husband and son said this is the way they create the formation. The planes dont take off all at the same time, so each of the plane had to catch up with the front planes when they take off to create a formation. Wow not an easy task but they did well for the show at Marina. Saw in the papers that they could create a heart shape with the smoke from the plane.


I wont be watching the parade live cause it is not easy to get the tickets. The tickets are issued via balloting. But I get to watch these planes live as they flew over me. :)

Kreta Ayer Wet Market - Final Part -Exotic Animals

Today my post is the final part of Kreta Ayer Wet Market.
This stall sold exotic animals.

The above is known as operation fish or Snakehead Fish.

In Asia, the snakehead fish are eaten in two ways. The smaller snakehead fish also nicknamed Operation fish, also known as Haruan, is recognized in Asia Pacific countries as a remedy for healing of wounds and it is best consumed as a herbal soup after operation/surgery. It is true cause it is quite effective but you need to cook with some herbs.

The bigger snakehead fishes are used for cooking with porridge or mee hoon (rice vermicelli).


The cages you see in the stall contained only certain exotic animals such as turtles, eels, frogs, etc. It used to sell snakes, small creatures but I think they are not allowed to sell many exotic animals anymore as they are endangered species.

We have frog farms in Singapore and they are breed to be sold to customers. Favourite dishes are the frog legs cooked with spring onions and ginger, frog leg porridge claypot, etc.

The kreta ayer wet market is located at the basement of chinatown complex at Block 335 Smith Street. You can view the map showing how to go to Kreta Ayer Wet Market from Chinatown MRT Station from map .